Firms 'should consider outsourcing CRM'

CRMBuyer.com reports that the economic downturn could lead firms to move their applications outside the company.

It suggests that cutting customer service spend is a bad decision, as the financial climate is likely to result in potential customers being aggressively marketed at.

The website states: "Organizations can now rely on outsourcers for a broad range of contact center technology services such as customer identification and authentication, multichannel self-service, call management and routing, call recording, and quality management."

According to the source, other advantages that outsourcing CRM capabilities can provide include improved analytics, high value and multichannel advantages.

The website advises that this can help prepare companies to make the most of the eventual upswing, allowing them to scale up and down its resources as needed.

A recent report by Gartner revealed that the software-as-a-service market for CRM has increased by 18 per cent in the last 12 months.